Why Suyá sing : a musical anthropology of an Amazonian people / Anthony Seeger.

Author/creator Seeger, Anthony
Format Book
Publication InfoUrbana : University of Illinois Press, ©2004.
Descriptionxxi, 159 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)
Subjects
Suya Indians--Music. --History and criticism.

Contents The Mouse Ceremony begins -- Suyá vocal art: from speech to song -- The origin of songs -- From lab to field: the mystery of rising pitch in a rainy season song -- Leaping, dancing, and singing the Mouse's song -- Why Suyá sing.
Abstract Like many other South American Indian communities, the Suya Indians of Mato Grosso, Brazil, devote a great deal of time and energy to making music, especially singing. In paperback for the first time, this book considers the reasons for the importance of music for the Suya--and by extension for other groups--through an examination of myth telling, speech making, and singing in an initiation ceremony. Based on over twenty-four months of field research and years of musical exchange, the author analyzes the different verbal arts and then focuses on details of musical performance. He reveals how Suya singing creates euphoria out of silence, a village community out of a collection of houses, a socialized adult out of a boy, and contributes to the formation of ideas about time, space, and social identity. This new paperback edition features a CD offering examples of the myth telling, speeches, and singing discussed, as well as a new afterword that describes the continuing use of music by the Suya in their recent conflicts with cattle ranchers and soybean farmers.
General noteOriginally published: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 153-156) and index.
Awards noteWinner of the American Musicological Society's Kinkeldey award.
LCCN 2004007220
ISBN0252072022 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Music Media - Ask at Circulation Desk CD-7931 ✔ Available Place Hold
Music Music Stacks ML3575.B7 S36 2004 ✔ Available Place Hold